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Inside the audacious mission to bring a rare toad back from the brink
The amphibian “IVF clinic” fighting to save the first amphibian ever afforded federal protections. Strings of eggs from breeding pairs of the Houston toad at the Fort Worth Zoo are prepared for release into a pond at Griffith League Ranch. Each bag of

Unearthing the past: Iraq’s mass graves and the quest for justice
Workers exhume the remains of bodies from a mass grave, presumably where Turkmens from Tal Afar were killed between 2014 and 2017 when ISIS controlled the region, Tal Afar district, Iraq, July 2024Image by picture alliance / Anadolu / Ali Makram Ghareeb ©

She Managed to get a Temporary Farmworker Visa
She managed to get a temporary farmworker visa. Once in the U.S., she endured abuse and exploitation.agricultural labor where they face sexual violence and trafficking. A Prism investigation reveals that women are routinely shut out of the H-2A program, and when they are

‘They Beat Me Like a Slave’: Signs of Violence in Sheriff’s Office Dated Back Years
The F.B.I. and a Mississippi sheriff investigated complaints about brutal assaults, but the deputies accused remained on the force and never faced charges. By Nate Rosenfield and Mukta Joshi Nate Rosenfield and Mukta Joshi are reporters for Mississippi Today. They examined the power of sheriff’s offices

Unlocking the Gates: How the North Led Housing Discrimination in America
Original release: February 12 2025 In this gripping follow-up to his award-winning podcast What Happened in Alabama?, Alicia Patterson Fellow Lee Hawkins exposes how Northern developers, brokers and legislators engineered a nationwide system of housing apartheid. Drawing on newly unearthed deeds, newspaper archives and first-person
Opinion | Are Embryos Property or People? Even the Courts Don’t Know
OPINION Are Embryos Property? Human Life? Neither? The Embryo Question is a three-part series about the cluster of cells at the crossroads of science, ethics and the law. Read the introduction. Between divorce cases and I.V.F. disputes, the frozen embryos vials like

The Coyote Next Door
What urban wildlife can teach us about cognition, survival and how to be good neighbors. Standing in a thicket of poplars, surrounded by tangled brush and magpie chatter, there’s an air of wilderness. But reminders of the urban world beyond the trees are

Opinion: Mexico’s new president should tackle the country’s festering human rights catastrophe
New President Claudia Sheinbaum can do more than her predecessor to resolve the disappearances and murders of Mexicans by gangs and past governments. (Fernando Llano / Associated Press) Every morning when I walk to the park across from my apartment in Mexico City,

How Heavy Rains and High Tides Hurt Nyc’s Black and Brown Neighborhoods
Normally, Estefani Nuñez parks the small yellow school bus she drives each day by the side of her home in the Rosedale neighborhood in Queens. On the day before she knows it’s going to rain, she parks her school bus a block away.

A climate change forecast: rain with a chance of mosquito-borne diseases
Decades before Elizabeth Blaney, now 84, moved to St. Albans, the neighborhood was shaded yellow on maps made by the federal government. The color yellow could mean there was a high number of immigrants—or that there was a possibility of Black people moving

How Robots Helped My Parents’ Dementia
Forget the crappy caregiver bots and puppy-eyed seals. When my parents got sick, I turned to a new generation of roboticists—and their glowing, talking, blobby creations. This article first appeared in the January, 2024 edition of Wired. Her research was supported by an

The Allure and Dangers of Experimenting With Brain-Dead Bodies
For scientists who perform medical research on the recently deceased, there are few regulatory or ethical guardrails. This article, written by Jyoti Madhusoodanan, is based on her 2023 Alicia Patterson Foundation fellowship research on human experiments and greater openness behind clinical trials. It

In Kosovo, War Survivors Turned Homes Into Their Own Museums
This article, by APF fellow Nina Strochlic, first appeared in the Washington Post on February 21, 2024. It was supported by her research for her APF fellowship. POKLEK, Kosovo — Fadil Muqolli has spent more than two decades trying to rebuild his life.

A Country Shaped By Poetry
This article, by APF fellow Nina Strochlic, first appeared in the Noēma Magazine on February 21, 2024. It was supported by her research for her APF fellowship. Hargeysa, the capital city of Somaliland. (Mustafa Saeed/Noema Magazine) Somaliland’s poets have toppled governments and ushered

How a controversial US drug policy could be harming cancer patients worldwide
Illustration by Karol Banach In August 2021, Amol Akhade, an oncologist at Nair Medical Hospital in Mumbai, India, received an e-mail from the Swiss drug manufacturer Roche recommending the use of a drug named atezolizumab to treat a specific kind of breast cancer.

US push to turn farm manure into renewable energy draws concerns
AMES, IOWA – In a gathering that drew the attendance of both farmers and Wall Street financiers, US regulators joined with oil giant Chevron at a November conference here to promote what backers promise will be a monumental breakthrough – systemic changes that

Where is the Future of the Catholic Church? Watching Young Adults Drop Out
The Catholic Church in the United States is split over the role of women, and whether Joe Biden should receive Holy Communion, but these divisions pale in comparison to the gap between the hierarchy and many young Catholics. They are dropping out in

Pope’s Environmental Stand Splits Catholics
The ecological concern Pope Francis has sparked among Catholics –and resistance to it– reflect how the faithful are split over the climate emergency, the role of capitalism, and where 1.3 billion global Catholics should put their money and clout. Powerful detractors say Pope

Fractured Worship
The small congregation of Roman Catholic women gathered for Mass not in a church but a living room, with a woman presider rather than a male priest. After the homily, each of the women offered a brief reflection. They took Holy Communion in

Sign of Catholic Divide – Women Want a Bigger Role in the Church
The small congregation prayed, sang, and listened to readings from scripture as any other Roman Catholics might do at Mass, rendering particular reverence at the moment of consecration, when the faithful believe bread and wine become the body and blood of Jesus Christ
Trying Out a New Country Before Climate Requires They Move

Against the Rising Tide
Canadian Wetlands Produce Fuel for U.S.

Investigative Report: Promises and Poverty
A Union Once Again Woos Underpaid Farmworkers


“Gone Time” Lives Anew in Alabama

Revisiting The Appalachian Coalfield

America’s Young Detainees
A Citizen On Paper Has No Weight

The Blackfeet’s Lost Acres

The Challenges and Growth of Progressive Muslims

Good Germs Gone Bad

Sweeping out the Plains

Lives in Looting
When Conflict Focuses on Citizenship

Brother’s Keeper: One Family, Two Suicides
Classmates: Portraits of a Chinese Generation



Aquaculture Moves Offshore

The Work of a Pullman Porter

The Mystery of Cancer in Alaska

The Cultural Broker in Refugee Resettlement
The Fake Crisis over Lawsuits: Who’s Paying to Keep the Myths Alive?

On The Americana Road Again

Disease: Shrimp Aquaculture’s Biggest Problem
America’s “Give While You Live” Philanthropist


Gateways of India’s Globalization

Choosing Servility To Staff America’s Trains

Murdering Women For Entertainment

The Curse of Cancer

How Long Will It Last?

Of Birds and Bombs
“The Monkey’s Head”

The Dichotomies in Indian Women’s Lives

Stopping the Pillage


A Judge in Coal Country

General on a Tightrope

Haitians in New York

A Letter from Baku: The Story Behind the Oil


The Life and Legacy of Paul de Kruif

An Amazon Preserve

What Bodies?

Belly of the Beast



A Son Confronts Oil Poverty in the Niger Delta



When the Sea Calls

A Museum In Black and White

